Damien Guillou is running east in Solarem with the heart of a South Atlantic storm closing in behind him. Race chairman Don McIntyre now expects seven to eight metre seas, sustained wind of 40 to 50 knots and gusts above 60, perhaps touching 70. The worst should last about nine hours, through Sunday night and into Monday, inside a rough spell of 24 to 36 hours, with a second front to follow. Guillou still leads Ertan Beskardes in Miss Beagle by about 545 miles, and the next day or two decides how much of that he carries into the Indian Ocean.
Golden Globe Race 2026: distance sailed
Tracker snapshots, start to Day 49
Source: Golden Globe Race live tracker (Yellow Brick)
At 20:00 UTC on Sunday the tracker had Guillou 20,293 nautical miles from the finish, with 6,771 sailed. He made good only 123 miles in the previous 24 hours, a thin return that reflects a week spent giving up course distance to stay clear of the weather. The detour is working. He has gained northing, bore away onto an easterly heading and was making about 5.2 knots at the last report. Window Live may keep a camera on him through the night.
The rest of the fleet is feeling the edge of the same system. Andrea Lodolo in BiBi is racing on at 3.9 knots with 35 to 40 knots around him and gusts of 50 possible later. Daniel Pinsky in Exodus was making 6.5 knots, with the breeze due around midday and likely to settle in the low 30s. Gunnar Christensen, at the back in Pompoen, has 28 to 30 knots and is doing 5.8.
Counting down to Good Hope
Guillou came on air from the saloon of Solarem in the small hours of Monday, New Zealand time, and he sounded easy. About 1,200 to 1,300 miles remain to the Cape of Good Hope, which he put at roughly ten days, with the Kerguelen Islands next. Close to day 50, he figures about a third of the race is done.
That day he had spoken by radio to Etienne Messikommer in Bernard, about 1,000 miles astern, with the rest of the fleet except Lodolo and Beskardes strung out between them. The wind is turning south-west, which suits his heading. After one gust he wrapped chafe protection around the lines on his sail regulator, a small job that tells you how much load the gear is carrying. He listens to the radio for an hour or two most days, and the sky has been kind: a big moon at night and good colour at sunrise.
Threading water on 28 degrees south
The best company of the weekend came from Beskardes, who has spent days holding near 28 degrees south in Miss Beagle while the weather sorts itself out ahead. Saturday was a flat calm. He dropped the boom, aired the boat, took down the spinnaker lines and checked the hull by pushing a GoPro under the water on a stick rather than going for a swim. It was, he said, his least productive day since Les Sables d'Olonne. Overnight he let the boat drift and played with the helm to chase the moon, and he finally pulled the GPS unit from beside the compass after finding it threw the compass out by 30 degrees. Every morning he sharpens his pencils and writes the next waypoints into his logbook, the habit of a man who expects to do most of his navigating by hand.
Sunday brought wind. It filled in at 15 to 17 knots from ahead, so he reefed the genoa, set the staysail and settled at five to six knots upwind with spray over the bow. Less sail meant more speed, he found. The boat, he says, is only happy above five and a half. Between sheet adjustments he worked out where the next blow might push him and pencilled a dead reckoning position onto his chart. A decent northerly, he noted, would be worth two degrees of longitude in a day.
The question all day was whether race control would let him bear away to the south-east. McIntyre had asked him to hold his latitude until the blow passes on Tuesday, and Beskardes had already given up a couple of days and about 300 miles marking time. He sent a satellite text asking permission, then waited, logging rubbish drifting past, including a wooden pallet about a metre across that he was glad to miss. Safety comes first, he said, and it is an eight-month race. When the reply came it was a yes. He thanked McIntyre, put every battery and radio he owned on charge while the sun held, and was soon over six knots on the heading the boat wanted. Another weather update is due Monday, and he expects 25 to 30 knots from the north to north-west.
He was also on air for hours. With Louis and Andrea off the roster, Beskardes picked up their Window Live slots as well as his own and talked for about seven hours, from 06:00 to 13:00 UTC, on everything from navigation to the strange durability of long-life food in the Pacific. His reasoning is simple. Being alone in the middle of an ocean means more when somebody is watching.
Across the fleet
Henry Wootton and Pär Nyman posted the biggest days. Privateer covered 174 miles in 24 hours and Lazy Otter 169, and both were making 7.2 knots. Isa Rosli sailed 154 miles in Olleanna and is doing 6.5 knots, though he still has hull cleaning to finish. Messikommer ran 151 miles at 6.1 knots in Bernard, Guido Cantini 135 in Hannah of Cowes at 5.5, and Mara Kveseth is making 6.1 in Showgirl. Matt Woodside is making 5.7 in Tipi Haere and Guy deBoer about 6 in Spirit.
Louis Kerdelhué has moved IE Charge from his mooring into the marina at Recife. McIntyre says a statement is on its way and he is waiting for it rather than announcing anything first. Pat Lawless is heading north on a broad reach after his retirement from the race, and our earlier report on his retirement has the detail.
What to watch
Guillou's next 36 hours are the story. If Solarem keeps her speed through the strongest phase overnight, the forecast points to a hard but manageable passage, with the second front still to come. Lodolo and Pinsky meet the stronger wind first, and Beskardes, now free to turn south-east, will want to put some water between himself and the chasing boats before the next update. Our previous report on the lead shows how the gap at the front has moved this week.
